Plant tour turns into energy talk During Shaheen visit at High Liner Foods in Portsmouth

By Jim Haddadinjhaddadin@fosters.com

Thursday, January 10, 2013

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John Huff/Staff photographer
Bill DiMento, corporate director of sustainability for High Liner Foods in Portsmouth serves Sen. Jeanne Shaheen one of their new products Fire Grilled Tilapia during a tour of their Portsmouth facility Wednesday to see many of the energy saving technologies they have implemented.

PORTSMOUTH — U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen renewed her call for a national strategy to boost energy efficiency Wednesday while visiting a seafood processing company in Portsmouth.

The New Hampshire Democrat met with company managers at High Liner Foods Inc., a Nova Scotia-based processor and marketer of frozen seafoods and pasta.

Shaheen used the opportunity to highlight the strides High Liner has made toward cutting down energy use at its Portsmouth facility. She also reiterated the need for Congress to revisit the issue of energy efficiency.

High Liner produces an assortment of frozen seafood products under different brand names. They range from American classics like fish sticks and frozen cod to more novel culinary products, such as applewood smoked salmon and tortilla crusted tilapia, with chipotle and lime crust.

Employees served up samples to Shaheen and other visitors following a brief tour of the facility at 1:45 p.m.

Some recent initiatives undertaken by High Liner to cut down energy use include installing LED lighting in freezers, and new T8 fluorescent bulbs throughout the building. Motion sensors have been placed in dry storage areas, and a computerized management system regulates refrigeration.

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John Huff/Staff photographer
Manager of Engineering Moe Boudreau, left, and Vice President of Northeast Plant Operations Karl McHugh, explain many of the energy saving technologies implemented at High Liner Foods to Sen. Jeanne Shaheen during a tour of their Portsmouth facility Wednesday.

“As a smart business, we're trying to bring the dollar back as best we can,” Bill DiMento, High Liner's corporate director of sustainability, said.

The company is also preparing to install a new 99 percent efficient gas boiler, and is evaluating the possibility of installing a large natural gas power generator on site that would create enough electricity for the entire processing plant.

During slowdowns in production, the generator could conceivably feed electricity back into the power grid, reducing costs for High Liner.

After the tour, Shaheen detailed some of the measures contained in Senate Bill 1000, the Energy Savings and Industrial Competition Act, for which she hopes to win support in Congress this year.

Sponsored by Shaheen, the bill was introduced on May 16, 2011, with the support of Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman.

The bill picked up two more sponsors — Democratic Sens. Chris Coons, of Delaware, and Mary Landrieu, of Louisiana — but didn't advance through the Senate.

Some provisions of the bill were signed into law Dec. 18, 2012, as part of separate legislation — the American Energy Manufacturing Technical Corrections Act.

Those measures are targeted at boosting energy efficiency in industrial buildings and government facilities.

In particular, the bill requires the Department of Energy to ensure its Advanced Manufacturing Office is working on research and development initiatives with other parts of the agency.

Congress has also directed DOE to study the barriers preventing companies in the industrial sector from investing in energy efficient technologies.

The bill also calls on federal agencies to create a plan to begin using energy metering technologies, and it requires certain covered federal facilities to use a web-based tracking system to publish energy and water consumption data.

“I think this is the beginning of what I hope will be more of a focus on energy efficiency,” Shaheen said.

Shaheen is hoping to gain traction in the Senate this year for the broader suite of energy-efficiency measures she proposed with Portman in Senate Bill 1000.

Among the measures in the bill are stricter national building codes for homes and commercial buildings, and a requirement for federal agencies to use energy saving measures on computers.

Another section calls for the federal government to work with states to establish a revolving loan program to help finance energy efficiency upgrades.

The bill would also expand the Department of Energy's loan guarantee program to include upgrades geared at lowering energy use.

For DiMento, decisions about whether to invest in new technology that uses less power are made based on how quickly the company will see a return on its investment.

In reality, that means that assistance in the form of government subsidies and tax credits could mean the difference between waiting to upgrade to more efficient technology now or down the road.

At its Portsmouth facility, High Liner employees 37 salaried employees, and another 200 hourly employees, some of whom work seasonally.

Another 130 High Liner workers who were previously employed at a facility in Danvers, Mass., will be taking jobs with the company in New Hampshire in the near future.

The Danvers plant and another in Newfoundland, Canada, were closed at the end of 2012 as part of a realignment for the company, following a period of growth through acquisitions.